


Normal

by alyshka



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Wings, i heart tobias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24159316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyshka/pseuds/alyshka
Summary: Tobias's perspective on the first encounter with the Ellimist in book 7: The Stranger.
Relationships: Rachel (Animorphs)/Tobias (Animorphs)
Kudos: 5





	Normal

**Author's Note:**

> First-time reader here, wrote this after reading The Stranger without knowing any future spoilers. After reading further in the series, I think it holds up pretty well!

It was a normal day—for me. I was drifting on a thermal, watching the tiny people in the city below, while my friends infiltrated the Yeerk pool. For the second time. The first time, I’d been there with them. It was how I had ended up like this—a bird, instead of a boy.

So I was floating up there, letting myself just be a hawk, because I didn’t want to dwell on all that stuff. But then, suddenly, I wasn’t there anymore. I was on the ground, in the dark. It was cold, and the air was stale and reeked.

Something was wrong besides all that, though. I felt… too high. I was on the ground, but the ground was also strangely far away. I was… big. Much bigger than I was supposed to be.

My eyes were slowly adjusting—it wasn’t full darkness, just dim. There were humans all around me, and Taxxons, and Hork-Bajir. None of them moving. Which was strange, but at that moment, I was more focused on what I saw when I looked down at my own feet. They were no longer the talons of a bird of prey—I had toes. Human toes.

The others were there too, not frozen, but I barely registered them. Until Rachel ran toward me. Then my instincts kicked in—my hawk instincts. See, hawks don’t like creatures bigger than them suddenly rushing at them. It’s always going to be perceived as a threat. So I did what a hawk would do—I tried to fly away.

Only, I didn’t have wings anymore. And when I remembered that, and realized all I was doing was flailing my arms—and in response to Rachel trying to hug me, no less—shame washed over me. It was fine to be a bird who sometimes acted like a human. It wasn’t okay to be a human who acted like a bird.

***

When the Ellimist confirmed, “Everything as it was,” it didn’t come as a blow. I honestly didn’t feel much of anything about it. Ever since I’d found myself at the Yeerk pool, having my human body back had felt surreal, like a dream. It wasn’t like being back home again after a long time away; it didn’t just suddenly fit. It was strange and awkward, and while I knew I could get used to it again with time, time wasn’t something I had.

And that was okay. This choice wasn’t about me. How selfish would it be for me to let my own desires influence my vote?

***

“I guess you have your answer,” Jake said, and instantly I was back in the sky, far above the city, looking down at it all from a distance. Wings outstretched, riding a thermal, something a regular human could never do. Where I belonged.

…For now.


End file.
